If the health department dropped by your house tonight, you and your kitchen would be graded on a scale of excellent to inadequate, with the possibility of good, average and marginal in between.

For restaurants, those five fateful words make all the difference, but they hardly paint a full picture of what's going on back in the kitchen.

More than 1,000 food-service establishments in Fort Collins, and around 1,700 in Larimer County are inspected by the Larimer County Department of Health as little as once and sometimes up to four times each year, barring any violations.

About half of all restaurant inspections over the past six months have violated the health code, though, to the point of requiring follow-up visits.

In August, the health department will have to approve the reopening of Tortilla Marissa's, which closed last month following a reported case of hepatitis A by an employee. The restaurant might reopen Aug. 9, when the incubation period for the virus ends.

Customers can track restaurants' health reports bi-monthly in The Coloradoan or at the health department's website, but here are a few important things to know about the inspections.

Restaurant owners/workers often don't know the rules.

When asked how often restaurant owners and workers are unaware of health department standards, environmental health specialist Jim Devore said: "All the time."

CSU Extension offers classes every month at the health department to train restaurant owners and employees on safe food handling. But anyone can open a restaurant or work in one without this training.

As a result, restaurants often don't know to check their food's temperatures, for example, or to create a policy for sick employees.

"Part of what we're trying to do in field inspections is to educate food operators and handlers as to why these processes are in place," Devore said.

Sick restaurant employees, he added, are the biggest challenge to the department in combating the spread of illness.

"Most (food handlers) are not full-time, and they've got a lot of pressure to go to work," Devore said. "Since most restaurants don't hire a lot of extra staff, from an economic standpoint, there is a push to get those folks back in the restaurants. But it can be devastating if they come back too soon."

Inspectors work with new and high-risk restaurants to create employee sick codes and other standard procedures that they might not otherwise enforce.

"Once they have processes in place, those facilities tend not to be problems for the health department," Devore said.

It takes only one violation to knock down a restaurant's rating.

To complete restaurant inspections, a point system is used with critical items — hygiene, refrigeration, waste disposal — weighted heavier than non-critical items, such as building structure.

"If you get a 20-point violation like 'cooling,' you can't get an 'excellent,'" Devore said.

Improper cooling could apply to many "potentially hazardous" food items, including cut lettuce and cut tomatoes. Restaurants have up to four hours to cool these vegetables to less than 41 degrees. But even if they place vegetables in a 40-degree refrigerator, depending on the size of their container, the food might not cool down fast enough.

"What we do know," Devore said, "is that foods that are not cooled quickly cause more illnesses than quickly cooled foods."

Larger containers or unstacked containers can help speed up the cooling process, Devore said. The problem with slow cooling is that it can allow pathogenic bacteria, such as salmonella or E. coli, to grow.

Just because a restaurant is rated 'inadequate' doesn't mean you shouldn't eat there.

If a restaurant racks up more than 100 violation points during an inspection, it will receive an "inadequate" rating.

Some violations can be fixed during the inspection, by throwing food away that's not at a safe temperature or moving it into another refrigerator.

If machinery is broken or long-term programs need to be put in place, the inspector will return to the restaurant after a few days or a few months for a follow-up.

"We tend to be conservative from the standpoint of when we have to close a facility and when they can reopen," Devore said.

But, he added, by publishing restaurant inspections online, the public has the power to choose.

"The idea behind putting (inspections) out there is so folks can decide what they want to do," he said.

Food trucks are inspected, too.

Mobile food vendors are required to hold a retail food license, just like any other restaurant.

In addition to restaurants, food trucks and pushcarts, inspectors check in on school and medical facility cafeterias, kids' camps and supermarkets.

Food trucks and carts are required to have a fixed-location commissary kitchen where they prepare the bulk of their food. Inside the mobile units, they are required to have a handwashing sink with a wastewater holding tank.

Curt Bear, who recently opened Bear's Backyard Grill food trailer, said he went through retail food licensing with the health department and food safety training with CSU Extension.

He said the whole process was smooth and helpful.

But, he added, much of these practices should just be common knowledge.

"A lot of it I learned when I was 12," he said, "in the kitchen with my mom."

Food safety by the numbers

40 degrees is the safe temperature for a home or restaurant refrigerator.

50 percent of health department inspections have required follow-ups in the past six months.

135 degrees is the maximum temperature in which food-borne diseases, such as hepatitis A or norovirus, can live.

165 degrees is the recommended temperature to cook chicken.

On wearing gloves

Jim Devore said the Larimer County Department of Health has been enforcing glove-wearing in restaurants for the past five or six years, in accordance with Colorado retail food law. The requirement applies only to ready-to-eat foods. Chefs and food service workers can use spoons, scoops or tongs with bare hands.

The California Senate recently voted to repeal a law that would have required California chefs and bartenders to wear gloves when handling ready-to-eat food. The argument of the lawmakers and restaurants was that "hand washing is as effective as wearing gloves, without the added cost or environmental effects of what would amount to millions of discarded gloves," according to the L.A. Times.